I don't really have an opinion on the subject, but just to play Devil's Advocate for a second, have you thought of the comparison of these services to spam filters? Many spam filters work by comparing a given email to a corpus of previous spams. The more the new one resembles old ones, the more likely it is to be spam. Same thing with the anti-plagiarism service. Now, would you argue that spam filters are unethical if they, in effect, make money off the back of spammers?
Thank you for your summation, both the one you posted here and the one at E2. Given that it was a series of government studies, from a range of government organizations, that led Americans down the path to obesity, I think it's safe to say we can blame the government for all of us being fat today.
Once more the truth is proven: one of the great lies of all time is, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you." If these people would just leave us alone to live our lives in peace, we'd all be happier (and I say this as a government employee).
Actually, your example wouldn't be infringing. It would be if you set up professions.com and sold tomsmith[.@]professions.com to someone, but your example is a fourth level domain. Their patent only covers third levels.
Which shows that they aren't just jackasses, they are also complete and utter newbs. I mean, who wouldn't write a patent to cover obvious extensions of the same patent??
Register.com and Verisign don't control the.name TLD, either. They just resell the third level domains. Just like Sourceforge does.
However, if Sourceforge has been doing this since before November 1999, it's pretty obvious prior art. A search on Google turned up this email, which seems to imply that MediaOne used to assign your hostname based on your email address. Can anyone verify this? If so, it predates the patent, and is demonstrable prior art.
I know that one job I had in the past had a policy of assigning the hostname of your workstation to be the same as your email address. For example, if your name was Bob, your email address would be bob@company.com, and your workstation's hostname would be bob.company.com. And this was in 1997. I can't imagine we were the only ones doing this.
Oh, well, if Outland Traveller didn't like it, then I guess there's no point in making any more.
Nevermind that TPM and AOTC brought in a combined $740 million just in US domestic distribution. Even if Ep III makes half of what AOTC made, it'll still gross $155 million, still a respectable amount.
Except that Minority Report was sci-fi film noir, and so was filmed in a darker style. Star Wars has always been, and always will be, pulp sci-fi, a la Flash Gordon serials from the 30's. Lucas has said time and again the movies were inspired by those old serials, so of course they're going to have a "cartoony" feel to them.
Having a wide selection of game systems sounds great, but don't forget you'll need space to put all those computers. Every console you add is another PC you can't have. Same with Mac. It's better to focus on one area, and do it right, than get too spread out.
To that end, forget about Mac and Linux. There just aren't enough games on those platforms. If you go with a console, pick one, or at most two, but don't have more than 25% consoles. PCs will be your bread and butter, because you can rent time on them for more than just playing games. You'd be surprised how many people come in just to use a fast internet connection to chat with their friends.
Food and drinks are a must. If anything, lose money on the hourly rental fees and make it up in snacks. Starbucks has proven that people will gladly pay $5 for coffee and $7 for a small brownie. If you charge some nominal amount for computer rental ($2 an hour), you'll be surprised how many people stay there the whole day. Sure, you'll only make $30 on someone on a Saturday, but you'll make another $50 on the food they eat. Also, don't allow any outside drinks or snacks, period. If someone wants to eat while playing, have them pay you, not the Mickie Dee's down the street.
And don't worry about selling games. Maintaining retail inventory is a bitch, and requires all kinds of controls you won't need for a cafe.
Actually, that would be useful for corporations who want their workers to use GIMP, but are worried about someone printing themselves up a nice fat bonus.
Wish I had found this before posting my first reply:
From wikipedia: "In the original radio series, this scene occurs at the end of the first series (Fit the Sixth). On discovering the question, Arthur Dent remarks "I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe.". "
H2G2 was a *comedy*, not a drama. Which is funnier, that the computer was infected by a virus and the Question was lost, or that the Question is non-sensical? I vote for the latter.
...will be pissed when they find out that the Ultimate question about life, the universe, and everything, is never revealed.
What are you talking about? The Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe, and Everything is "What is 6 times 9?"
The answer, of course, is 42.
(For the humor impaired, the joke is that 6*9 is not, actually, 42, implying there's something seriously wrong with the Universe when it can't even answer its own question correctly.)
I'll grant you that the military's job is to kill people and break things (in fact, I wish more people would remember this when they talk of sending in "peace keepers"). But the military also has an active interest in protecting its own people, and in making sure they have the tools to get their jobs done. Most of the "military research" that goes on is in one of those two spheres, and is not directly related to war fighting.
Let the military stay out of non-military institutions. They engineer stuff with one ultimate applicable purpuse only: killing human beings.
Not always true. The military has also granted funding to projects on how to create better parachutes; new surgical techniques; communications and team building; and many others.
Check out the DARPA Programs page to browse through and see what your tax dollars have paid for over the years. You might be surprised.
Most people agree that censuses, at least, are benign.
I don't know about that. History has plenty of examples of people freaking out over censuses. There's an example in the Old Testament of King David ordering a census, and people rioted because of it. The Domesday Book was so named because people thought King William ordering a census would cause the world to end. And of course you list the prime example of census taking gone awry: the Nazis cataloguing the Jews. I'm sure there are others, but you get the idea.
If they are prepared to pay me enough, I'll do it!
Well, they're probably prepared to pay $1.50 an hour. So unless you live in India or the Philipines, I wouldn't be dusting off the ol' resume if I were you.
I think you're jumping to conclusions. People can already predict hurricanes and tornados in advance; that ability hasn't stopped people from living in areas hit by them.
The reality is, people who live in earthquake zones already know they're likely to be hit by an earthquake. Having the ability to know when a quake is likely to hit just means you'll be able to take precautions to lesson the impact (no pun intended).
the CIA world fact book is the best you could do? Man-oh-man...hardly backs up your claim of having vistited 40 countries and up
The CIA WFB was the "best" I was willing to do for a Slashdot flame war. It provided the statistics I was looking for in a quick, easy to read format. Good enough for this setting. As for my "claim", I don't need to back it up. I know what I've accomplished, and really don't care if you believe me.
As for your statement regarding 'not needing a college degree'...true, we do need garbage collectors.
Yep, and carpenters, and plumbers, and computer repair guys, and plenty of other honest jobs that need doing and provide plenty of satisfaction to those who persue them. You're lack of respect for those who don't go to college is...disturbing.
By the way, nice switch off between student loans and Enron. Seeing as how Enron was a case of hiding shady accounting and not just a company having too much debt, it took some balls to link them up. But you did it, and I'm impressed.
education is cheaper...about 10% of US costs
And apparently worth about 10% as much, considering how many of your best and brightest try to get into our schools.
Then we get to the last paragraph...your lack of understanding of international politics is astounding.
*yawn* Come on, man, you set the bar so high for yourself, then fail to stay strong to the finish. Maybe you were just getting tired after typing so much already. Tell ya what, feel free to flame again, but just focus on my lack of understanding of military or diplomatic issues in the next one. I promise I won't think less of you because of it. And just keep ignoring the points I raised in the original post, it's serving you well so far. You can also ignore the fact that I've been in the Navy since 1988, that I'm third generation Navy, and that all of the men in my family have served in wartime in one way or another going back over 100 years.
Oh, last point: since you're so up to speed on current American military doctrine, I don't have to remind you that the Pentagon is currently redoing how the military is structured for precisely the reasons you list. Nor do I have to remind you that most of America's spending in the military goes to R&D for future weapons systems, not just maintaining the status quo.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't really have an opinion on the subject, but just to play Devil's Advocate for a second, have you thought of the comparison of these services to spam filters? Many spam filters work by comparing a given email to a corpus of previous spams. The more the new one resembles old ones, the more likely it is to be spam. Same thing with the anti-plagiarism service. Now, would you argue that spam filters are unethical if they, in effect, make money off the back of spammers?
Just something to think about.
Thank you for your summation, both the one you posted here and the one at E2. Given that it was a series of government studies, from a range of government organizations, that led Americans down the path to obesity, I think it's safe to say we can blame the government for all of us being fat today.
Once more the truth is proven: one of the great lies of all time is, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you." If these people would just leave us alone to live our lives in peace, we'd all be happier (and I say this as a government employee).
One big problem with this idea is the use of bots and cheats. If you don't control the PC, how can you be sure the player isn't cheating?
Yes! This is perfect! Thank you!
Actually, your example wouldn't be infringing. It would be if you set up professions.com and sold tomsmith[.@]professions.com to someone, but your example is a fourth level domain. Their patent only covers third levels.
Which shows that they aren't just jackasses, they are also complete and utter newbs. I mean, who wouldn't write a patent to cover obvious extensions of the same patent??
Neither did yours.
Feature request of SlashCode: wrap text URLs in anchor tags. Please!
Register.com and Verisign don't control the .name TLD, either. They just resell the third level domains. Just like Sourceforge does.
However, if Sourceforge has been doing this since before November 1999, it's pretty obvious prior art. A search on Google turned up this email, which seems to imply that MediaOne used to assign your hostname based on your email address. Can anyone verify this? If so, it predates the patent, and is demonstrable prior art.
I know that one job I had in the past had a policy of assigning the hostname of your workstation to be the same as your email address. For example, if your name was Bob, your email address would be bob@company.com, and your workstation's hostname would be bob.company.com. And this was in 1997. I can't imagine we were the only ones doing this.
Oh, well, if Outland Traveller didn't like it, then I guess there's no point in making any more.
Nevermind that TPM and AOTC brought in a combined $740 million just in US domestic distribution. Even if Ep III makes half of what AOTC made, it'll still gross $155 million, still a respectable amount.
Except that Minority Report was sci-fi film noir, and so was filmed in a darker style. Star Wars has always been, and always will be, pulp sci-fi, a la Flash Gordon serials from the 30's. Lucas has said time and again the movies were inspired by those old serials, so of course they're going to have a "cartoony" feel to them.
Having a wide selection of game systems sounds great, but don't forget you'll need space to put all those computers. Every console you add is another PC you can't have. Same with Mac. It's better to focus on one area, and do it right, than get too spread out.
To that end, forget about Mac and Linux. There just aren't enough games on those platforms. If you go with a console, pick one, or at most two, but don't have more than 25% consoles. PCs will be your bread and butter, because you can rent time on them for more than just playing games. You'd be surprised how many people come in just to use a fast internet connection to chat with their friends.
Food and drinks are a must. If anything, lose money on the hourly rental fees and make it up in snacks. Starbucks has proven that people will gladly pay $5 for coffee and $7 for a small brownie. If you charge some nominal amount for computer rental ($2 an hour), you'll be surprised how many people stay there the whole day. Sure, you'll only make $30 on someone on a Saturday, but you'll make another $50 on the food they eat. Also, don't allow any outside drinks or snacks, period. If someone wants to eat while playing, have them pay you, not the Mickie Dee's down the street.
And don't worry about selling games. Maintaining retail inventory is a bitch, and requires all kinds of controls you won't need for a cafe.
And this one time, at band camp, I saw a shapeless phallus!
Yeah, that fits.
Actually, that would be useful for corporations who want their workers to use GIMP, but are worried about someone printing themselves up a nice fat bonus.
Really? Are you sure? Though this idea does seem familiar.
You know what I would love to see? A report that a screener was leaked by that carpenter.
"I'm not a pirate, I just lent it to my neighbor for the weekend! How was I to know he had a cable modem?!?"
Wish I had found this before posting my first reply:
From wikipedia:
"In the original radio series, this scene occurs at the end of the first series (Fit the Sixth). On discovering the question, Arthur Dent remarks "I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe.". "
H2G2 was a *comedy*, not a drama. Which is funnier, that the computer was infected by a virus and the Question was lost, or that the Question is non-sensical? I vote for the latter.
...will be pissed when they find out that the Ultimate question about life, the universe, and everything, is never revealed.
What are you talking about? The Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe, and Everything is "What is 6 times 9?"
The answer, of course, is 42.
(For the humor impaired, the joke is that 6*9 is not, actually, 42, implying there's something seriously wrong with the Universe when it can't even answer its own question correctly.)
Yes, well, that sort of thing wouldn't happen if you had a brain the size of a planet. Not that you care.
I'll grant you that the military's job is to kill people and break things (in fact, I wish more people would remember this when they talk of sending in "peace keepers"). But the military also has an active interest in protecting its own people, and in making sure they have the tools to get their jobs done. Most of the "military research" that goes on is in one of those two spheres, and is not directly related to war fighting.
Let the military stay out of non-military institutions. They engineer stuff with one ultimate applicable purpuse only: killing human beings.
Not always true. The military has also granted funding to projects on how to create better parachutes; new surgical techniques; communications and team building; and many others.
Check out the DARPA Programs page to browse through and see what your tax dollars have paid for over the years. You might be surprised.
Most people agree that censuses, at least, are benign.
I don't know about that. History has plenty of examples of people freaking out over censuses. There's an example in the Old Testament of King David ordering a census, and people rioted because of it. The Domesday Book was so named because people thought King William ordering a census would cause the world to end. And of course you list the prime example of census taking gone awry: the Nazis cataloguing the Jews. I'm sure there are others, but you get the idea.
If they are prepared to pay me enough, I'll do it!
Well, they're probably prepared to pay $1.50 an hour. So unless you live in India or the Philipines, I wouldn't be dusting off the ol' resume if I were you.
I think you're jumping to conclusions. People can already predict hurricanes and tornados in advance; that ability hasn't stopped people from living in areas hit by them.
The reality is, people who live in earthquake zones already know they're likely to be hit by an earthquake. Having the ability to know when a quake is likely to hit just means you'll be able to take precautions to lesson the impact (no pun intended).
You're bothered by magnitude 2 earthquakes?? *pfff* Newb.
You sad, sad, little man.
...about 10% of US costs
the CIA world fact book is the best you could do? Man-oh-man...hardly backs up your claim of having vistited 40 countries and up
The CIA WFB was the "best" I was willing to do for a Slashdot flame war. It provided the statistics I was looking for in a quick, easy to read format. Good enough for this setting. As for my "claim", I don't need to back it up. I know what I've accomplished, and really don't care if you believe me.
As for your statement regarding 'not needing a college degree'...true, we do need garbage collectors.
Yep, and carpenters, and plumbers, and computer repair guys, and plenty of other honest jobs that need doing and provide plenty of satisfaction to those who persue them. You're lack of respect for those who don't go to college is...disturbing.
By the way, nice switch off between student loans and Enron. Seeing as how Enron was a case of hiding shady accounting and not just a company having too much debt, it took some balls to link them up. But you did it, and I'm impressed.
education is cheaper
And apparently worth about 10% as much, considering how many of your best and brightest try to get into our schools.
Then we get to the last paragraph...your lack of understanding of international politics is astounding.
*yawn* Come on, man, you set the bar so high for yourself, then fail to stay strong to the finish. Maybe you were just getting tired after typing so much already. Tell ya what, feel free to flame again, but just focus on my lack of understanding of military or diplomatic issues in the next one. I promise I won't think less of you because of it. And just keep ignoring the points I raised in the original post, it's serving you well so far. You can also ignore the fact that I've been in the Navy since 1988, that I'm third generation Navy, and that all of the men in my family have served in wartime in one way or another going back over 100 years.
Oh, last point: since you're so up to speed on current American military doctrine, I don't have to remind you that the Pentagon is currently redoing how the military is structured for precisely the reasons you list. Nor do I have to remind you that most of America's spending in the military goes to R&D for future weapons systems, not just maintaining the status quo.